Ryan’s Weapon
Ryan reached for the open bottle of red wine sitting on the counter. The pan on the stove was already hot, waiting for the deglaze that might still salvage the sauce. Patrick’s hand shot out as if Ryan had reached for the family silver.
“Do not drink in my apartment.”
Ryan paused with the bottle halfway to the pan. “I am not drinking. I am cooking. The wine is going into the pan.”
“That is what people say right before they start drinking.”
“That is what chefs say when they are trying to stop a sauce from tasting like regret. Move.”
Patrick did not move. “I can handle the wine. You are already doing everything else. Give me one task that does not involve you hovering.”
Ryan set the bottle down just out of easy reach and picked up the knife again. “Fine. You want a task. Watch the heat and do not do anything dramatic while I finish the garlic.”
He started chopping. Clean, fast, the kind of motion that made the board sound purposeful. Patrick watched for approximately four seconds, decided that was long enough to prove competence, and grabbed the wine.
“Patrick—”
Too late. Patrick tipped the bottle over the hot pan with the confidence of a man who had never met a thermal reaction he could not improve. The wine hit the surface and the kitchen answered with a hard, bright whoosh of flame that leapt straight up, caught the edge of Patrick’s silver sleeve, and licked across toward Ryan’s floral collar before either of them could step back.
The fire was brief. It was also extremely committed.
Patrick yelped and spun, batting at his arm. Ryan grabbed a towel, smothered the worst of it on both of them, and killed the burner in the same motion. The smell of scorched synthetic fabric filled the air. A blackened patch bloomed on the ceiling directly above the stove like a permanent reminder of poor decision-making. Soot streaked across both their faces. The floral shirt now had a crisp, ugly burn along the collar and one shoulder. Patrick’s silver shirt looked like it had lost a fight with a candle and a grudge.
Her Grace, who had been supervising from the relative safety of a dining chair, exploded into motion at the sudden burst of fire. She launched herself straight at Ryan with the single-minded terror of a creature who had decided that the nearest solid human was better than the open flame. Claws, fur, and pure panic hit him square in the chest. Ryan caught her automatically, swearing, still holding the towel, still furious.
Patrick’s horror was immediate and specific.
“Put her down. You do not get to hold her. You have spent the entire afternoon calling her Satan and an insurance claim and an unpaid intern.”
Ryan adjusted his grip on the squirming cat so she would not climb any higher. “Apparently even Satan knows who the competent adult in the building is. She did not jump at you.”
“She was frightened.”
“She has taste.”
Patrick reached for her. Her Grace hissed once, decided Ryan’s chest was still the superior option, and dug in. Ryan winced.
“Your cat is using me as furniture. Control your familiar.”
“She is discerning. And you are getting soot on her fur.”
“She is getting claw marks on my last remaining dignity. Take her.”
Patrick finally extracted Her Grace with the careful hands of a man rescuing royalty from a peasant. She allowed the transfer with visible reluctance and immediately fixed Ryan with a look of deep personal betrayal from the safety of Patrick’s arms.
Ryan looked down at himself. The floral shirt was ruined in a new and creative way. Burnt edges. Soot. A faint green memory of the earlier puree still visible under the fresh damage. Patrick’s silver shirt was no better. The sleeve had a crispy hole and the front was streaked with black.
“These were perfectly good shirts five minutes ago,” Patrick said, voice climbing. “Do you have any idea what this fabric cost.”
“Less than the two thousand dollars you spent on a birthday portrait of a cat, and somehow still more than the value of every shirt I have left in this building. Your cat destroyed my clean laundry. Your puree destroyed the backup. Now your wine technique has finished the job. I am out of shirts because of your household.”
“You owe me a shirt. This one is metallic. It was intentional.”
“Wear one of the ones your cat used as a litter box. The pattern will suit your personality. Chaotic. Expensive. Impossible to clean.”
Patrick’s mouth opened and closed. “That is disgusting.”
“So is the state of my wardrobe. Change if you want. I am not stopping the sauce for a fashion emergency.”
Patrick looked at the ruined silver, then at Ryan’s equally destroyed floral situation, and made a decision born of pure aesthetic distress. “I am changing. And I am not lending you anything. My clothes are not made for someone so aggressively unfashionable. You would stretch the shoulders and look wrong in the color and I would never recover.”
“Then I will cook like this.”
Ryan pulled the scorched floral shirt over his head and dropped it on the counter beside the earlier puree casualty. He turned back to the stove shirtless, picked up the tongs, and started assessing what could still be saved from the flame incident as if the temperature of the room and the presence of an audience were irrelevant.
Patrick stared.
It was only a second. Maybe a second and a half. Long enough for his eyes to track the line of Ryan’s shoulders, the shift of muscle as he reached for the pan, the soot still smudged across one cheekbone. Then Patrick recovered with the speed of a man who had practice at pretending nothing had happened.
“You are looking for excuses to get naked in my kitchen.”
Ryan did not look up from the pan. “I am looking for a way to finish this dinner without smelling like a house fire. You are the one who keeps destroying the options.”
“Put something on.”
“You just refused to lend me anything. Make up your mind.”
Patrick’s face had gone pink under the soot. “That was different. That was an emergency situation involving a towel and a hallway and a complete lack of warning.”
Ryan glanced over, mild and lethal. “I was wondering when you would bring that up. You stared for a full ten seconds by your own count. Emergency or not, you got a very thorough look.”
“It was an emergency.”
“It was a dropped towel. You treated it like a public exhibition.”
Patrick turned on his heel and disappeared toward the bedroom before the color in his face could get any worse. Her Grace watched him go, then turned her judgmental attention back on Ryan as if the entire fire had been his idea.
Ryan kept cooking. The sauce needed reducing. The garlic needed watching. The ceiling needed a professional at some point, but that was a problem for later and preferably for Patrick’s insurance.
Patrick returned faster than expected, still pink, still soot-streaked, and holding a sleeveless shirt out at arm’s length like it might bite.
“Here. Cover yourself. This is the best I can do under the circumstances.”
Ryan took it and held it up. The fabric was soft and dark, but the cut was deliberately loose. Deep armholes. A neckline that sat lower than strictly necessary. The whole thing looked less like practical kitchen wear and more like something designed to be taken off later.
“This is purposely slutty,” Ryan said.
Patrick’s spine straightened. “It is fashion. It is breathable. It is intentional. Not everything has to look like it came from a restaurant supply catalogue.”
“It is loose in places shirts are not usually loose and open in places shirts are not usually open. You own a slutty sleeveless top and you just handed it to me like it was a neutral solution.”
“It is not slutty. It is elevated casual. Put it on before I change my mind and leave you to cook in soot.”
Ryan pulled it on without further argument.
On him the already-loose cut became a larger problem. The armholes sat even lower, opening wide along his sides and exposing the full line of his ribs, a distracting amount of upper chest, and most of his torso every time he moved. The hem hit higher than it should have. The garment looked less like clothing and more like a mutual dare that had gotten out of hand.
Patrick took one look and visibly regretted every life choice that had led to this moment.
Ryan noticed.
He did not make a speech about it. He just noticed. Patrick looked. Patrick lost the sentence. Useful.
Ryan reached for a high cabinet instead of the step stool that sat two feet away.
The sleeveless shirt rode up. Not dramatically. Just enough. The lower edge lifted, the side openings shifted, and a clean strip of skin appeared above the waistband of his jeans. He stretched further than strictly necessary, fingers brushing the bottle he wanted, and held the position a beat longer than required.
Patrick looked.
Ryan caught the glance in the reflection of the microwave door and said nothing. He brought the bottle down, set it on the counter, and went back to the pan as if the entire reach had been ordinary.
Patrick found something extremely important to do with the chopping board. He rearranged the already-chopped tomatoes. He adjusted the knife. He studied the grain of the wood like it contained the secrets of the universe.
A few minutes later Ryan needed the pepper mill from the far side of the island. He leaned across instead of walking around. The shirt gaped. The line of his side was briefly, fully on display. Patrick’s attention slipped again, quick and involuntary, before he jerked his gaze back to the board hard enough that the knife slipped and clicked against the ceramic.
Ryan still said nothing.
The next opportunity arrived on schedule. Patrick, recovering his dignity, decided the sauce needed criticism.
“You are reducing it too far. It is going to seize. I have seen this exact mistake on at least three of the videos and the comments section was not kind.”
Ryan reached across him, unnecessary and precise, to claim a wooden spoon that was already within Patrick’s own reach. The movement forced Patrick to lean back mid-sentence. The open side of the sleeveless shirt brushed close. Patrick’s words died in his throat.
Ryan stirred the sauce once, calm, and answered as if the interruption had been accidental.
“The videos also told you to pour wine into a screaming hot pan like you were trying to summon a dragon. How did that work out for the ceiling.”
Patrick opened his mouth. Closed it. Reached for a new complaint and found the proximity still occupying too much of the available air.
Ryan stepped back to a normal distance and continued cooking.
He did not pose. He did not announce anything. High reaches when a lower option existed. Cross-body leans when walking around was easier. Ordinary kitchen movements, adjusted just enough.
Every time, Patrick’s focus fractured for a fraction of a second. Every time, he recovered with visible effort and a fresh wave of irritation that he directed at the food, the cat, the ceiling, anything except the actual source.
Ryan kept his expression neutral and his hands busy.
Ryan decided the sauce needed heat. Not the accidental kind that had already blackened the ceiling. The controlled kind. He set a small bowl on the counter, tipped in a spoonful of the remaining chili paste, a splash of cream, a pinch of salt, and pushed the whole thing toward Patrick along with a whisk.
“Whip that together. Light hand. It is supposed to be a sauce, not a weapon.”
Patrick took the bowl with the air of a man who had been waiting all afternoon for a task that would finally prove his superiority. “I know how to whisk.”
“You also knew how to pour wine. The ceiling still disagrees.”
Patrick ignored him and set to work. His enthusiasm was immediate and excessive. The whisk became a blur. The mixture climbed the sides of the bowl faster than physics preferred. A bright red droplet launched over the rim in a neat, vindictive arc and landed high on Ryan’s chest, right where the deep armhole of the sleeveless shirt left the skin completely exposed.
Ryan hissed and looked down.
“You burned me.”
Patrick kept whisking for another two seconds before the words registered. He set the bowl down with exaggerated care. “It is barely anything. You are being dramatic. It is a tiny drop.”
Ryan stepped closer, close enough that Patrick had to tip his head back slightly to keep eye contact. He pointed at the small red patch blooming on his skin. “That is not nothing. That is a direct hit from your overenthusiastic wrist.”
Patrick tried to look. The problem was the distance. Or the lack of it. Ryan’s chest was suddenly the entire foreground. The loose shirt gaped along the side, showing the line of his ribs. The red mark sat just above, still glistening faintly. Patrick’s brain performed a short, unhelpful reboot.
“I cannot see anything,” he said, too quickly. “You are inventing injuries now.”
Ryan reached out, caught Patrick’s wrist, and guided his hand forward until the tips of Patrick’s fingers rested against the warm, irritated skin.
“There. Feel that. That is heat. That is your fault.”
Patrick froze.
His hand was flat against Ryan’s chest. He could feel the residual warmth of the chili, the steady beat underneath, the faint dampness of kitchen heat on bare skin. The entire situation was technically his doing. He had whisked too hard. He had launched the mixture. He was now standing here with his palm on the evidence like an idiot who had never encountered consequences before.
Unfortunately, Ryan McHotass was spectacularly hot, and unfortunately he was also Ryan. Patrick was annoyed at himself for noticing either fact.
“You are being ridiculous,” he said, voice slightly higher than usual. “It is barely red. You would think I had thrown acid.”
“You are incapable of admitting when you have injured someone. It is a pattern. First the puree. Then the wine. Now this. At some point you are going to set me on fire properly and still claim I overreacted.”
Patrick’s hand stayed where it was for a fraction longer than any purely diagnostic touch required. Then he snatched it back as if the skin had bitten him and wiped his palm on his trousers with unnecessary force.
“It was an accident. Stop looking so pleased about it.”
Ryan was mostly amused. Patrick had gone pink again, the color climbing from his collar all the way to his ears. Over a single drop of chili cream. Over a completely ordinary kitchen injury.
“I am not pleased. I am documenting. Every time you touch an ingredient, something ends up on me. I am starting to think it is a strategy.”
“It is not a strategy. It is your insistence on standing too close while I work.”
“You were the one whisking like you were trying to start a small appliance. I was a full arm’s length away.”
Patrick grabbed the bowl again and whisked with pointedly smaller movements, refusing to look at Ryan’s chest. Ryan let the silence sit for a moment, then turned back to the stove. The red mark still tingled. He left it alone.
The kitchen had grown properly hot. The residual heat from the earlier flame, the burners still working, the lack of effective ventilation, all of it combined until the air felt thick. Ryan’s face was damp. He reached down, caught the bottom hem of the sleeveless shirt, and lifted it to wipe the sweat from his forehead and the bridge of his nose.
The motion was casual. Practical. It also exposed the full plane of his stomach, the cut of his obliques, and the lower half of his torso for several uninterrupted seconds.
Patrick looked.
Ryan lowered the shirt, caught the direction of the glance, and raised one eyebrow.
“You know, you could just ask.”
Patrick’s head snapped toward the cutting board so fast it was a wonder he did not pull something. “I was not looking.”
“You were. That is three separate times this afternoon.”
“I was checking whether you had somehow managed to get puree on yourself again. You have a talent for attracting mess.”
Ryan glanced down at his own midsection, still mostly bare under the loose armholes, then back up. “On my stomach.”
Patrick opened his mouth. Nothing useful came out. He closed it again and reached for a tomato that did not need further attention.
Ryan went back to the pan.
Patrick, recovering, decided the seasoning was wrong. “You have under-salted the base. I can taste the imbalance from here. The videos were very clear about building layers of—”
Ryan reached up to the high cabinet again, longer this time. The shirt rode higher. The side openings shifted until the line of his ribs and the flat plane of his stomach were fully on display. He held the position while he searched for a bottle that was already on the counter behind him.
Patrick’s sentence evaporated.
Ryan brought his arm down, set the unnecessary bottle aside, and resumed stirring. “You were saying. Something about layers.”
Patrick stared at the sauce as if it had personally betrayed him. “I was saying you should taste as you go. Which you are not doing.”
“I taste constantly. You would know that if you were watching the food instead of the shirt.”
“I am watching the food.”
“You are watching the food the way people watch a car crash. Unable to look away and deeply concerned about the outcome.”
Patrick made a noise of pure frustration and went back to his board. Ryan gave him thirty seconds of peace. Then Patrick started again, this time about the heat level under the secondary pan.
“It is too high. You are going to scorch the bottom and then we will have to start the entire reduction over and I already spent a small fortune on the ingredients you keep treating like they are disposable—”
Ryan lifted the shirt again, wiped the back of his neck, and let the fabric stay raised just long enough. The exposure of stomach and obliques did the rest. Patrick’s voice trailed off into an indignant silence.
Ryan dropped the hem and checked the pan. “You were worried about scorching.”
“I am worried about working with someone who treats clothing as optional and personal space as a suggestion.”
“You handed me the shirt. You defended the cut. You called it elevated casual. These are the consequences of your own fashion choices.”
“I did not design it so you could use it as psychological warfare.”
“Then you should have handed me a turtleneck.”
Patrick looked like he wanted to argue further and could not locate a single safe angle. Every time he opened his mouth, Ryan found a new reason to stretch or reach or wipe sweat from his face, and every time the concentration required for a proper counter-attack simply dissolved. It was infuriating. It was also, against every preference Patrick possessed, extremely difficult to ignore.
Ryan kept the movements ordinary. He never held a pose. He never commented on what he was doing while he was doing it. He simply cooked, and occasionally adjusted his shirt, and watched Patrick’s ability to sustain an argument collapse in real time.
The chili mark on his chest had settled into a mild, warm sting. The sleeveless shirt continued to be a terrible idea that kept paying dividends. Her Grace had retreated to the far end of the sofa and was watching both of them with the expression of a creature who had seen enough human incompetence for one day.
Patrick tried one more time, voice tight with the effort of not looking anywhere except the board. “When the guests arrive I am telling them you sabotaged the entire process. I am telling them you spent the afternoon half dressed and deliberately unhelpful.”
Ryan reached across the island for the salt, close enough that the open side of the shirt brushed the air between them, and answered without heat.
“Tell them whatever you want. Just make sure you also tell them who poured the wine, who launched the chili, and who owns the shirt that is currently winning every argument in this kitchen.”
Patrick had no reply that would not require looking at him again.
He chopped the already-chopped tomato into even smaller pieces and said nothing. Ryan smiled at the pan and kept cooking.
Chapter 6 – Patrick Finds His Weapon
Ryan still had the advantage and he was not subtle about using it. Every time Patrick started a sentence with too much confidence, Ryan found a reason to reach higher than necessary or wipe sweat with the hem of the sleeveless shirt. Patrick’s arguments kept dying mid-flight. It was starting to feel unfair in a way that made Patrick itch for something of his own.
Her Grace provided the first opening.
Ryan had been running a dual campaign all afternoon: keep the cat away from the food, and somehow convince her that he was not the enemy. The barricades failed within minutes. She simply waited until his back was turned and then appeared on the counter as if teleportation were a basic life skill. Bribery worked slightly better. He offered her a scrap of the good protein. She accepted it with the solemnity of a queen receiving tribute, ate it, and immediately knocked a measuring spoon onto the floor out of pure principle.
“You are impossible,” Ryan told her. “I am trying to be nice to you and you treat it like a personal insult.”
Her Grace ignored him and began the slow, deliberate process of hacking up a hairball directly beside the cutting board.
Ryan recoiled. “That is disgusting. That is actively hostile. Get her out of the food zone before she weaponises biology.”
Patrick was already moving. The theatricality dropped off him like a coat. He scooped her up with careful hands, checked her mouth, felt along her sides, and spoke in a voice Ryan had never heard directed at anything human.
“All right, darling. Easy. Let me see. You are fine. Just a little dramatic, same as always. No one is allowed to be unwell on a dinner night. House rules.”
He carried her to the sofa, settled her on a clean towel, and stayed crouched beside her for a full minute making sure the episode was over. No performance. No audience awareness. Just quiet, focused care. He stroked between her ears with the kind of gentleness that did not match a single argument they had ever had.
Ryan watched from the kitchen and felt something land in his chest that he could not name. It was not the usual irritation. It was not the competitive spike he got when Patrick was being difficult. It was quieter and more disorienting, like the floor had shifted half an inch while he was not looking. He stared longer than he meant to.
Patrick glanced up and caught the expression. Something thoughtful flickered across his face. He filed it away without comment and gave Her Grace one last soft murmur before returning to the counter.
“She is fine. Stop looking at me like I performed a miracle. I simply know my own cat.”
“You went from drama queen to emergency vet in under three seconds. It was unsettling.”
“I contain multitudes. You contain mostly criticism and an inability to keep your shirt on.”
Later, when the protein needed its final sear, Patrick reached for the tongs.
“I can do that part.”
“No.”
“I have been watching. I understand the timing. The color change. The sound. I am not completely helpless.”
“You understand the timing the way you understood the wine. Stay on garnish before we have to explain another ceiling incident to the insurance company.”
Patrick argued. He pointed out that he had paid for every ingredient. He pointed out that it was his dinner. He pointed out that Ryan was treating him like a child who could not be trusted with heat. He lost every point. The frustration that followed was not theatrical. It was small and real. He set the tongs down harder than necessary and said, simply, “Fine.”
Ryan’s entire rhythm stuttered. The next instruction he had been about to issue evaporated. He stood there for a second too long with the pan in his hand, thrown by the absence of pushback. The kitchen felt briefly wrong without the usual resistance. Patrick noticed the falter the same way he had noticed the earlier look. Interesting.
Patrick tried it again before the next sauce could catch.
Ryan refused to let him place the final herb oil.
“It is the last step. I can manage a drizzle. It is oil. It is not rocket science.”
“You will make it look like abstract expressionism. Leave it.”
Patrick went quiet. Not loud-quiet. Soft-quiet. His shoulders dropped a fraction. His mouth did something small and disappointed. He looked at the oil like it had personally rejected him and he had decided to accept the rejection with dignity.
Ryan’s head snapped around. “Stop.”
“I am not doing anything.”
“You are doing the face.”
“What face.”
Ryan gestured at Patrick’s entire expression with the tongs. “That. The whole wounded thing. The soft eyes and the quiet acceptance. Cut it out. It is weird.”
Patrick blinked, all innocence. “I am simply accepting that I am not allowed to contribute to my own dinner. It is fine. Truly. I will stand here and look decorative. That seems to be my primary function today.”
Ryan made a frustrated sound and turned back to the pan. The sauce nearly caught because he had spent three full seconds thrown by the lack of fight. Patrick filed that away with great interest and no commentary.
He became a complete drama queen with it.
Over the next half hour he deployed the expression with increasing commitment. When Ryan corrected his knife grip, Patrick went soft-eyed and silent, as if the correction had wounded something fundamental. When Ryan moved a bowl out of his reach, Patrick accepted the slight with the air of a man who had expected nothing better from the universe. When Ryan told him the salt was already balanced, Patrick nodded once, small and defeated, and set the cellar down like it had betrayed him.
Ryan started spotting the difference almost by accident. The fake version was bigger, more deliberate, a full performance of suffering complete with careful posture. Real irritation or actual disappointment made Patrick quieter, smaller, harder to read. Ryan did not examine why the quiet version bothered him more. He simply got better at calling the theatrical one out.
“That is the fake face. I can tell. Your left eyebrow does extra work when you are lying about your feelings. It is a tell. Stop it.”
Patrick’s left eyebrow immediately betrayed him by twitching. He scowled and went back to the board. “You are imagining tells. I am simply existing. You are the one turning every facial expression into a conspiracy.”
“Your face is a conspiracy. It has agendas.”
“At least my face does not use clothing as a psychological weapon.”
“The shirt was your idea. Elevated casual. Your words.”
Ryan leaned in closer than necessary to check the reduction, close enough that the open side of the sleeveless shirt brushed the air between them. Patrick lost track of the spoon he was holding and nearly let the edge of it scorch against the pan. He recovered with a sharp breath, deployed the devastated expression in retaliation, and watched a secondary pot boil over in a hiss of wasted liquid.
“You did that on purpose,” Ryan said, killing the heat under the overflow.
“I did nothing. I simply looked the way a person looks when they are not allowed to help. If that damages your concentration, that is a you problem.”
“It is a you-with-the-face problem.”
Patrick attempted another aesthetic substitution while Ryan’s back was turned. He moved a perfectly serviceable metal bowl of resting meat into a wide, hand-thrown ceramic that looked better under the light. Ryan caught him mid-transfer.
“Second warning. Unsuitable containers. That one is porous, it is heavy, and if you drop it we are both on our knees for twenty minutes. Put it back.”
“It looks better. The metal is industrial. It kills the plating energy.”
“The metal keeps the food at the correct temperature. The ceramic keeps the food at room temperature and then shatters if you look at it wrong. Back.”
Patrick returned the meat to the metal bowl with the air of a man surrendering territory under protest. “You have no soul.”
“I have a functioning kitchen. Different priority list.”
Ryan needed five minutes. He pointed at the cranberry mixture simmering gently on the back burner.
“Keep that on low and let it reduce. Do not touch it. Do not improve it. Do not decide it needs a more beautiful vessel. I will know. The universe will know. Your cat will know and she will judge you.”
He left for the bathroom.
Patrick lasted forty seconds.
The cranberry reduction sat in an ordinary saucepan looking aggressively plain. He could not tolerate it. The color was good. The consistency was developing. But the vessel was an insult to the entire concept of presentation. He found a heavy, expensive ceramic bowl with a hand-glazed rim that caught the light properly, transferred the hot mixture with great care, and was just turning to set it somewhere more visually acceptable when Her Grace decided the moment required her presence.
She launched from the counter in a sudden blur of fur and poor timing.
Patrick startled hard. The ceramic left his hands in a pure reflex of panic. The bowl hit Ryan square in the chest as he stepped back into the kitchen, upended, and drenched him from collarbone to waist in hot red reduction. The empty ceramic hit the floor and broke into several large, expensive pieces with a sound like a very costly mistake.
Silence.
Patrick’s horror was immediate. He closed the distance in two steps, hands already checking Ryan’s arms, his chest, the front of the soaked sleeveless shirt.
“Are you hurt. Did it burn. Is there ceramic. Talk to me.”
Ryan looked down at himself, dripping crimson, the broken bowl at his feet. “I am not hurt. I am wearing your dinner. Again.”
The confirmation that nothing was damaged except dignity and fabric undid Patrick completely. The laugh escaped, helpless and bright. Ryan covered in hot cranberry looked like a crime scene that had decided to become modern art. The laugh got worse. He tried to smother it with a hand and failed.
Ryan’s eyes narrowed. “You think this is funny.”
“You look like you lost a fight with a salad and the salad won by technical knockout.”
Ryan scooped a handful of the nearest surviving cranberry and flung it. It hit Patrick square in the chest with a wet slap. Patrick’s outrage was immediate and theatrical.
“That was my last clean shirt.”
“Join the club. I am starting a support group for people whose wardrobes have been destroyed by this apartment.”
Patrick retaliated with a handful of his own. Within ten seconds the kitchen had descended into a full food fight, both of them grabbing whatever was left of the reduction and any nearby soft ingredient that could be weaponized. Her Grace fled to the highest bookshelf and watched the proceedings with the expression of a creature updating her will.
Ryan reached the sink first and seized the sprayer hose. Cold water hit Patrick in a hard, continuous stream. Patrick lunged for control of the nozzle. They grappled, slipping on the wet floor, shoving for leverage, neither willing to surrender the hose. Water went everywhere. The shirt Patrick had changed into earlier was soaked through in seconds and clung. Ryan’s sleeveless situation became transparent and worse, the fabric plastered to the lines of his torso in a way that made the next three seconds of struggling significantly more complicated for both of them.
“Let go.”
“You let go. You threw a bowl of sauce at me.”
“I did not throw it. Your favorite demon startled me and the bowl left. There is a difference.”
“The difference is currently dripping down my stomach.”
Ryan got the advantage, pinning Patrick’s wrist against the edge of the sink. Water sprayed uselessly against the backsplash. Patrick’s face changed. The quiet, wounded look landed with perfect timing, soft and defeated and completely manufactured. Ryan’s grip loosened for half a second on pure reflex.
Patrick sprayed him directly in the face.
Ryan sputtered, blinded, and realized he had been played. “You absolute menace. That was the face. You used the face.”
“I used available resources. You left an opening.”
The war resumed with renewed commitment. By the time they finally stopped, both of them were soaked, streaked with red, and breathing hard. The kitchen looked like a natural disaster had developed a personal grudge and then invited friends.
Ryan dragged a hand down his face and pointed at the broken ceramic still scattered across the floor. “You transferred hot sauce into another unsuitable bowl after I specifically told you not to. Then you let your cat turn it into a projectile. We could have been hurt. Properly hurt. Not sauce-hurt. What is wrong with you.”
Patrick’s adrenaline crashed into the reality of the room. The floor was a lake of cranberry and water. The walls were speckled. The new pendant light had droplets hanging from it like accusing ornaments. His expression went tight with genuine stress.
“The house. Look at the house. The guests are coming and it looks like a crime scene. I cannot serve dinner in a crime scene. They will think I have finally snapped. Theo already thinks I am a danger in a kitchen. This will confirm it.”
Ryan stepped in, caught both of Patrick’s wrists, and held him still before the spiral could fully take hold. The contact was firm. Practical. Closer than strictly required. “Stop. Breathe. You clean. I finish the food. Division of labor. The food is still salvageable. The apartment is a write-off for the next hour but it is not permanent. But first I need something that is not currently half sauce. I am going to wash this off. Find me clothes that will survive the next twenty minutes without becoming another casualty.”
Patrick nodded once, still pale, and pointed him toward the bathroom with a hand that was not entirely steady.
Ryan stripped out of the ruined sleeveless shirt and the rest of the wet layers, rinsed the worst of the cranberry off under cold water, and wrapped a towel around his waist. When he stepped back into the bedroom corridor, Patrick was just emerging from his own bathroom, also freshly showered, also in a towel, hair damp and sticking to his forehead. Water still beaded along his collarbone.
They both stopped.
The beat lasted a full second too long. Neither of them looked away first. Then Patrick cleared his throat, reached into the wardrobe without looking directly at Ryan, and shoved a pair of soft shorts and a plain shirt in his direction.
“Here. Try not to destroy these ones. I am running out of options that do not involve sequins or historical inaccuracy.”
Ryan took the clothes. He did not rush. He dropped the towel with deliberate lack of urgency and let it hit the floor. He stepped into the shorts slowly, taking his time with the waistband, adjusting it twice when once would have been enough. He stretched his arms over his head, rolled his shoulders, and let the full clean lines of his torso stay on display while he considered the shirt. Nothing was hidden. The movement was casual enough to deny and thorough enough to make the denial difficult. Steam from the bathroom still clung to his skin. The chili mark from earlier had faded to a faint pink reminder.
Patrick’s ears went pink. He stared at a fixed point on the wall with the intensity of a man trying to levitate through sheer willpower, failed, glanced back at the stretch of stomach and the shift of muscle, and then looked away again harder. Unfortunately Ryan McHotass was still spectacularly put together, and unfortunately he was still Ryan. The combination was becoming a personal attack.
Ryan picked up the shirt, turned it over in his hands, and decided against it.
“I will wait on the shirt. Every time I put one on, you find a way to ruin it. Puree. Wine. Cranberry. I am done losing fabric to your kitchen. Shorts are enough until the food is actually finished and no longer trying to kill us.”
He walked back into the main room half-dressed and completely aware of the effect. Patrick followed, visibly hot and bothered and trying to pretend the temperature of the apartment had simply risen due to residual stove heat and not the fact that his neighbor was cooking dinner in almost nothing.
Ryan returned to the stove. The remaining components of the dinner were still salvageable if he moved quickly. Patrick attacked the floor with a mop and a stream of increasingly creative complaints.
“You threw the first handful.”
“You laughed first. Laughter is an act of war. I responded proportionally.”
“You turned my kitchen into a swimming pool.”
“You transferred sauce into another fancy bowl after two warnings and then let your cat turn it into a weapon. We are not the same species of problem.”
“My light fixture has cranberry on it. Do you know what that light fixture cost.”
“Less than the cat portrait and somehow still more than your common sense. Your light fixture has survived worse. It survived you.”
Patrick wrung out the mop with unnecessary violence. Water slapped into the bucket. “I am never letting you near a sauce again.”
“You are never near a sauce without supervision again. That is the actual rule. Write it down. Laminate it. Put it next to the two-thousand-dollar cat art.”
“You are enjoying this.”
“I am enjoying the fact that the food is almost done and you have not yet found a way to set the remaining pans on fire. Lower the bar and I will clear it every time.”
They kept working. Ryan plated what could still be plated, moving around the kitchen in shorts and nothing else. Patrick restored the floor to something that would not require a hazmat team, muttering under his breath every time Ryan leaned across the island or stretched for a utensil on the high shelf. The banter stayed sharp and constant. Every time Patrick’s voice climbed too high with residual stress, Ryan found a reason to lean or stretch, and the complaint would hitch for half a second before continuing at a slightly less stable volume.
“Stop doing that.”
“Doing what. Cooking.”
“Existing like that while I am trying to mop. It is distracting and you know it.”
“I am existing in shorts because every shirt I have touched today has died a violent death. Take it up with your stove and your cat and your relationship with ceramic.”
Patrick dragged the mop across a stubborn red streak and refused to look at the bare line of Ryan’s back. “When the guests arrive I am telling them everything. The wine. The bowl. The food fight. I am leaving nothing out.”
“Tell them. Add the part where you used a facial expression as a tactical weapon and then sprayed me in the face. I want the full oral history.”
“You are impossible.”
“And you are still mopping cranberry out of the grout. Focus. The food is almost there.”
Neither of them mentioned the towels. Neither of them mentioned the look that had passed between them in the corridor. Ryan cooked in shorts and nothing else and called it practical. Patrick cleaned and called the distraction an ongoing personal attack. The dinner, against every available odd, began to look almost possible. The apartment still smelled faintly of smoke and sugar and defeat, but the plates were filling and the floor was no longer a hazard, and for the first time since the first pan had burned, both of them were too busy to keep score of who was winning.
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